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robbing brood nest.... how often?

How often can one rob the brood nest? I have one strong hive and need for brood but feel bad opening it up every other week. Do you all keep a hive going 'just' for brood during the season or rotate from different hives or???? What is the best way to have brood for your needs (Trap outs, queenless hives) with the minimum disturbance; especially to strong producing hives. Not to mention having to remove the honey supers first before getting down to that brood nest just to see if there is enough.....

Re: robbing brood nest.... how often?

Yep, I keep a hive with feeder on it just for making brood for me. It comes in very handy for when making queen cell builders or adding a frame of larva to swarms or to boost a weaker but healthy hive or to boost a honey hive with brood a couple weeks before a flow. A brood hive really comes in handy.

Re: robbing brood nest.... how often?

How much you can remove(every 14 days) is dependent on what you are removing. They have alot more invested in a frame of hatching brood than a frame of eggs. It also depends how strong the donor hive is. If it has 10 frames with brood, stealing one has little effect. If it has only 3, stealing one will set them back 2 weeks at least.

We record most events that occur to a hive, and try to spread the stealing around.